Friday, September 12, 2008

3.1 9 6 6 1 3

Starting pitcher:
M.C. O'Connor

After yielding only 14 HRs in 30 starts, MC gave up two big bombs last night. OK, I can forgive Adrian Gonzalez. After all, that dude is a stud. He can jack 'em off anyone. But Drew Fookin' Macias? Shit, that whole 82-pitch, 20 batter nightmare looked like BP. Worst outing of the season, obvviously, a spectacularly Zitovian effort.

"I'm embarrassed in how I pitched and embarrassed for the team," Cain said. "I feel like I let them down, [given] the things we've been doing the past week." (Haft article)

After a stellar 10-start run from July 1st to August 20th, MC has crashed back to earth with three straight poor games. Fatigue? He won't say so, but when you are 4th in all of baseball in number of pitches thrown, you have to wonder. We'll see if he can rebound in his last three starts and finish strong. JCP and I were musing the other night that perhaps what Matt Cain needs is another pitch. I think the Giants should hire Rick Reuschel to teach him to throw a sinker. Too many pitches up in the zone--he needs to have batters put the ball in play and make outs. When the Bloody Fookin' Padres are jacking them out of the yard and pounding the fences in Petco, something is seriously wrong.

Readers: if you are not tuned in to the revolution that is "pitchf/x," you are missing out. I live 300 miles from my beloved team and spend a lot of time with Jon Miller, Phlegm, Kuip, etc. And I'm addicted to Gameday and its pitch-by-pitch display. The data accumulated from the tracking system Gameday uses is freely available for download and analysis. Our very own blogfellow, Chris at BCB, does some amazing shit with pitchf/x numbers. His last three posts have focused on Hennessey, Zito and Lincecum. Check 'em out, report back.

5 comments:

Those charts Chris posts on BCB are wonderful. They're like some post-modern art. You can "see" a pitcher's game all in one place.Hennessey's was very calm. No highs, no lows, just a barrage of mediocre pitches, well placed.Stats you can feel.

Thanks for the link guys, I always appreciate them. And I'm glad that your enjoy the plots, I'm trying not to go overboard with them but I've been plotting the data myself lately and it's like a new toy for me.

Hey Mark, I sent you an email yesterday but I can't tell if it went through. Ever get it? I'll resend if it got lost in the transition.

I am growing more and more concerned daily at the workload Matt and Tim are receiving, regardless of the results. These are both young men, Matt even younger than Tim. There is plenty of documented evidence about the strain of excessive workloads on young arms. Of course, our young men may not fit the expected norms, but then again, the risk is so much greater than the potential reward right now, and growing greater with each start that I am - fretful. Full of fret. The remarks I read in the paper from Bochy vary between "we'll keep an eye on these guys" to "we are not going to vary our rotation because, um, just because." I don't know what to make of it, but I am preparing tar and feathers.

We should all be bursting with fret. Fret up to our eyes! These guys have no clue. Last year they shut down Tim early, this year it has been an abuse-fest since April! First they blow out Merkin's elbow, then when he finally returns (and looks great) they promptly blow out the same elbow (of course they say it is a different injury!) but this time they shut him down super early and play it safe. There is no plan and no one in charge.

This would be the perfect time for a new pitching coach. (Isn't Zito's old coach still available?) This would probably be just what Matt needs, maybe a new pitch but for sure a new approach.